Yes but this Modern the counter options aren't exactly great so would I rather have Force sure but we don't even have counterspell so yeah I take misstep in my UR, UW and URW decks thank you very much.
I'm running 2x Surgical maindeck in GDS to wonderful success (and when it's bad, it's a "free" sideboard slot. Will be running 3x Gut Shot when I finally switch to Phoenix.
The stance is more just backlash against how everyone says Probe was broken, but was never broken for 5+ years in Modern, until a bunch of Delve cards came along and made it broken. Misstep is a busted card in a vacuum, but in this format, it's probably just "really good."
Is Surgical really ever 'bad' though? I see articles on it all the time 'blah blah you are all sideboarding it in too much'. Well if I Surgical your Fatal Push, and now you cannot kill my 2nd Thing in the Ice, who's laughing now?
I dont know, overtired musings I guess, I went 3-1 tonight, UR Phoenix is an amazing fun deck.
Is Surgical really ever 'bad' though? I see articles on it all the time 'blah blah you are all sideboarding it in too much'. Well if I Surgical your Fatal Push, and now you cannot kill my 2nd Thing in the Ice, who's laughing now?
I dont know, overtired musings I guess, I went 3-1 tonight, UR Phoenix is an amazing fun deck.
It's really bad against the fair and redundant creature decks like bushwhacker zoo and merfolk. And very medium against diversified decks like Jund. Can be a good gotcha, but often something in the SB is better.
It's quotes like these that really make me laugh. I don't understand the lack in large part of the community simply understanding how degenerate "free" really is.
Cool down a bit. I can also laugh at how alarming you sound. By the way, PF isn't "free", it's a piece of an engine with Grove, closer to Foundry + Sword than what the lacking community describes as free.
I would run Punishing Fire into Hollow One, Phoenix Decks, Mardu, Ponza, Dredge, Jeskai, etc.
My question was being honest, not naive. I can imagine just as much as you where it could belong, but I expect more than "I slam the card here, and I break the format there". It's superficial and doesn't help me figure out the power of the card.
In Hollow One, we cut Bolts for PF, then we raise the mana curve, which lets us with a ton of 2 cmc spells. H1's plan is mostly to kill fast, so how PF can be a useful tool there ?
In UR Titi, we don't want 2 cmc spells at all. Must force Groves. And we want to hit hard, not grind. I fail to see how PF is backbreaking in the shell.
In monoR Phoenix, I can see the card be good. Grove doesn't hurt the manabase, but it hurts the burn plan a bit.
In Mardu, I can see the power of the card, and it would help a fair Midrange deck, but must force Groves.
In Ponza, can you tell me what bad MUs it fixes ?
In Dredge, what do you cut for PF ?
In Jeskai, well it could help a fair Control deck, but must force Groves, then is it really better than Lightning Helix ?
Overall is the PF engine (which requires to force Groves at times) better than Fatal Push, Assassin's Trophy, Snapcaster Mage, and all many good removal spells we got in so many years ? Does this additional removal spell really break the format ? In Legacy, PF goes along with Loam, can it be different in Modern ?
I'm asking real questions here, can I expect elaborate answers in a respectful mood ? I would accept a "damn that's a tough topic to figure out" as well.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
...I could very much see punishing Fire forcing small creature decks out the meta. Looking at with the purpose of helping Jund would probably blow up in everyone's faces.
Mental Mistep shouldn't even be a discussion here. It has zero value to discuss. It's beyond broken. Period. End of discussion.
Midrange would need something like DRS or POD---but like, who are we kidding? DRS just got banned from legacy for being broken in half despite it really being played by the fair decks. And POD becomes a degenerate fair deck with an equally good combo plan. POD would be murder on those aggro decks, too. Here's Voice. Here's Kitchen Finks. Here's Rhino. Here's a combo piece.
Midrange is basically looking at needing new cards
Reid Duke and Jabberwocki have elected not to play any Assassin Trophies in their decks. It's too tempo negative.
Mental Mistep shouldn't even be a discussion here. It has zero value to discuss. It's beyond broken. Period. End of discussion.
Saw that thing in action in Legacy. Even mono red goblin decks had mental misstep to counter... other mental missteps. In the end, mental misstep could not counter the ban hammer.
POD would be murder on those aggro decks, too. Here's Voice. Here's Kitchen Finks. Here's Rhino. Here's a combo piece.
Haha, that's a funny way of describing it. Probably the reason it got ban, and will never be unban. Pod players would have to be content with Collected Company.
Reid Duke and Jabberwocki have elected not to play any Assassin Trophies in their decks. It's too tempo negative.
From memory, Reid was on a 2/2/2 Trophy/Decay/Pulse split when he released his Golgari video. The Jund video he released yesterday was recorded pre-GRN, thus the lack of Trophy.
As someone who basically plays Golgari Midrange in Modern to the exclusion of all else, I’d like to jump into the the “BGx is bad” discussion that’s been laced intermittently throughout the last several pages of this thread.
Lack of card selection is the great Achilles heel of the archetype; that is no secret. Cards like Grim Flayer and Traverse the Ulvenwald are too conditional, and too easily rendered toothless by both soft and hard forms of hate, relative to their mediocre ceiling. I think we just have to accept that card selection is not a tool that’s reasonably available to us—so how do we compete in Modern?
Well, first off we have to make sure we aren’t losing to our own deck. For now, this means playing only 2 colors IMHO. Fetch+Shock damage, Blood Moon, natural colorscrew...all of these risk factors are heavily mitigated with a 2c landbase, which also just so happens to comfortably leverage 2-4 Fields of Ruin and ~6 basic lands, giving the deck a huge amount of intrinsic value when competing on that axis.
Restricting ourselves to just the two core colors also means that the specific spells in our 75 are a lot more flexible. Golgari can easily support 4 Nihil Spellbombs, 3 Scavenging Oozes, and 1x each of Kalitas, Grafdigger’s Cage, and Surgical Extraction, which is what my current build runs. If the meta is extremely grindy it can support 4x each of Bob and Tracker. If Burn is king it’s not unreasonable to register 4x Brutality and 2x Finks is your 75.
I could go on, but the salient point is that our lack of card selection can only really be mitigated by playing a high density of whatever cards are most needed to survive against Modern’s linear insanity, and a two-color shell provides the most stable and painless base upon which to build a 75 that’s capable of interacting while keeping pace with the meta.
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GP Portland is today, a critical Modern datapoint before the end of 2018. There's only one more Modern GP after that leading into the 2019 B&R updates, so this is where we need to diagnose Modern issues. It will be nice to have real data from meaningful events. This will hopefully move us away from restless unban speculation about cards that are almost certainly never coming off like PF or the laughably broken MM.
The newest development in Modern since GP ATL is Phoenix. I expect we see this card in Mardu, Mono R, Izzet, Jeskai, and other flavors as people try it out. The other big issue is whether or not Modern can pivot from the linear GP ATL T8 into something healthier at Portland. I have not been playing enough on MTGO to make an informed prediction about how strategies are positioned today.
Is Surgical really ever 'bad' though? I see articles on it all the time 'blah blah you are all sideboarding it in too much'. Well if I Surgical your Fatal Push, and now you cannot kill my 2nd Thing in the Ice, who's laughing now?
Exactly how I feel about the card. So long as you know what you're up against, two life can potentially eliminate every copy of a particular problem creature, win-con, silver bullet, etc. It's true that it will probably be lackluster against decks with built-in redundancy, but the versatility is fantastic and it's never really a dead card.
Can't really see how anyone could argue for Twin unban now that we have a Tier 1 UR archetype in Phoenix. The archetype even exemplifies what Wizards envisions that color combination to be better than Twin did, which is "instant/sorcery spells matter".
Before phoenix, of course, I think there was a good argument for the lack of good UR decks
And as much as I was arguing for Misstep, I can admit that it is laughably overpowered and will not come back. Oh how I wish it was costed at UU instead. That said, I would still love to see something like Force of Will / Misstep in modern that can counter turn 1 plays on the draw. I believe that would be an excellent addition to modern.
Yes surgical is often bad. If you playing against a deck where hitting a single card ruins them (Urza land, Valakut, Ad Nauseam, Vizier) then it can be worth running. However going down a card to make the opponents draws slightly worse is awful against most midrange/control/aggro decks. If I'm playing Jund, or UWx control, or aggro I would happily make the 7th card in my opponents hand a Surgical if I was given the option.
It's quotes like these that really make me laugh. I don't understand the lack in large part of the community simply understanding how degenerate "free" really is.
What's "free" about Punishing Fire? It costs mana to cast, and costs mana to trigger. You need to dedicate enough slots in your deck for both halves, and while one half is a land, there's some decks which do not want it - low curve aggro decks (which seldom get above 3 lands in play, and cannot afford to draw Grove but not Fire) are one example. There are more below which you mistakenly think can just slam Grove into.
We currently are having decks shove Arclight Phoenix into their decks where it may not even belong.
Do you have an actual example of this? Arclight Phoenix has spawned its own archetype and aside from that, the only deck (not decks) I know of that tried it is Mardu. There are more Mardu decklists out there without Phoenix than there are with Phoenix.
I would run Punishing Fire into Hollow One, Phoenix Decks, Mardu, Ponza, Dredge, Jeskai, etc.
Good luck shoehorning Punishing Fire into Hollow One. They need their fetchlands for Bloodghast and delve creatures, and the only land that isn't a fetch or a fetch target is Blackcleave Cliffs. So you can choose between making your Bloodghasts and delve creatures less consistent, or switching to RG and having a SB that can't beat combo.
Ponza cannot run Punishing Fire. It needs lots of Forests to enchant with Utopia Sprawl and untap with Arbor Elf. This is why you don't see Copperline Gorge in Kird Ape decks or Rootbound Crag in Valakut decks: because the basic land type matters, more than it being able to produce both green and red. On top of that, Ponza is a Blood Moon deck (as is Mardu, incidentally).
As for Jeskai...lol, you want to play 3-4 lands that tap for red and no other colors that you can use, in a deck that already has a ton of burn spells and Snapcaster Mage to cast them again?
Can't really see how anyone could argue for Twin unban now that we have a Tier 1 UR archetype in Phoenix. The archetype even exemplifies what Wizards envisions that color combination to be better than Twin did, which is "instant/sorcery spells matter".
Before phoenix, of course, I think there was a good argument for the lack of good UR decks
I mean, besides the fact that one is a mostly linear turn 3 aggro deck, and the other is a tempo/control deck with combo finish, they're totally the same thing!
Granted Phoenix is super fun, it's absolutely nothing like Twin. It's more like a cross between Dredge and Storm, without falling to specific hate, and can win about as quickly.
GP Portland is today, a critical Modern datapoint before the end of 2018. There's only one more Modern GP after that leading into the 2019 B&R updates, so this is where we need to diagnose Modern issues. It will be nice to have real data from meaningful events. This will hopefully move us away from restless unban speculation about cards that are almost certainly never coming off like PF or the laughably broken MM.
The newest development in Modern since GP ATL is Phoenix. I expect we see this card in Mardu, Mono R, Izzet, Jeskai, and other flavors as people try it out. The other big issue is whether or not Modern can pivot from the linear GP ATL T8 into something healthier at Portland. I have not been playing enough on MTGO to make an informed prediction about how strategies are positioned today.
An alarming number of Phoenix decks in the Modern Day 2 SCG meta.
Plz don't be a busted deck...I can't lose another.
We've seen an alarming number of decks in the Day 2 for most events since early 2017. We've even seen an alarming number of decks in T8s. And by the same token, we've seen no bans since early 2017, whether based on T8s and, especially, Day 2s. It's not worth worrying about and there's no recent evidence to suggest it's something to worry about.
Yes but this Modern the counter options aren't exactly great so would I rather have Force sure but we don't even have counterspell so yeah I take misstep in my UR, UW and URW decks thank you very much.
It would definitely see play, probably a lot. But it would not be "auto-include 4x every deck in the format."
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I dont imagine it would be a very positive inclusion to the format though.
Playing around with Gut Shot, and Surgical Extraction, it enables busted lines of play.
Spirits
I'm running 2x Surgical maindeck in GDS to wonderful success (and when it's bad, it's a "free" sideboard slot. Will be running 3x Gut Shot when I finally switch to Phoenix.
The stance is more just backlash against how everyone says Probe was broken, but was never broken for 5+ years in Modern, until a bunch of Delve cards came along and made it broken. Misstep is a busted card in a vacuum, but in this format, it's probably just "really good."
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I dont know, overtired musings I guess, I went 3-1 tonight, UR Phoenix is an amazing fun deck.
Spirits
It's really bad against the fair and redundant creature decks like bushwhacker zoo and merfolk. And very medium against diversified decks like Jund. Can be a good gotcha, but often something in the SB is better.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Cool down a bit. I can also laugh at how alarming you sound. By the way, PF isn't "free", it's a piece of an engine with Grove, closer to Foundry + Sword than what the lacking community describes as free.
My question was being honest, not naive. I can imagine just as much as you where it could belong, but I expect more than "I slam the card here, and I break the format there". It's superficial and doesn't help me figure out the power of the card.
In Hollow One, we cut Bolts for PF, then we raise the mana curve, which lets us with a ton of 2 cmc spells. H1's plan is mostly to kill fast, so how PF can be a useful tool there ?
In UR Titi, we don't want 2 cmc spells at all. Must force Groves. And we want to hit hard, not grind. I fail to see how PF is backbreaking in the shell.
In monoR Phoenix, I can see the card be good. Grove doesn't hurt the manabase, but it hurts the burn plan a bit.
In Mardu, I can see the power of the card, and it would help a fair Midrange deck, but must force Groves.
In Ponza, can you tell me what bad MUs it fixes ?
In Dredge, what do you cut for PF ?
In Jeskai, well it could help a fair Control deck, but must force Groves, then is it really better than Lightning Helix ?
Overall is the PF engine (which requires to force Groves at times) better than Fatal Push, Assassin's Trophy, Snapcaster Mage, and all many good removal spells we got in so many years ? Does this additional removal spell really break the format ? In Legacy, PF goes along with Loam, can it be different in Modern ?
I'm asking real questions here, can I expect elaborate answers in a respectful mood ? I would accept a "damn that's a tough topic to figure out" as well.
Mental Mistep shouldn't even be a discussion here. It has zero value to discuss. It's beyond broken. Period. End of discussion.
Midrange would need something like DRS or POD---but like, who are we kidding? DRS just got banned from legacy for being broken in half despite it really being played by the fair decks. And POD becomes a degenerate fair deck with an equally good combo plan. POD would be murder on those aggro decks, too. Here's Voice. Here's Kitchen Finks. Here's Rhino. Here's a combo piece.
Midrange is basically looking at needing new cards
Reid Duke and Jabberwocki have elected not to play any Assassin Trophies in their decks. It's too tempo negative.
Saw that thing in action in Legacy. Even mono red goblin decks had mental misstep to counter... other mental missteps. In the end, mental misstep could not counter the ban hammer.
Haha, that's a funny way of describing it. Probably the reason it got ban, and will never be unban. Pod players would have to be content with Collected Company.
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From memory, Reid was on a 2/2/2 Trophy/Decay/Pulse split when he released his Golgari video. The Jund video he released yesterday was recorded pre-GRN, thus the lack of Trophy.
As someone who basically plays Golgari Midrange in Modern to the exclusion of all else, I’d like to jump into the the “BGx is bad” discussion that’s been laced intermittently throughout the last several pages of this thread.
Lack of card selection is the great Achilles heel of the archetype; that is no secret. Cards like Grim Flayer and Traverse the Ulvenwald are too conditional, and too easily rendered toothless by both soft and hard forms of hate, relative to their mediocre ceiling. I think we just have to accept that card selection is not a tool that’s reasonably available to us—so how do we compete in Modern?
Well, first off we have to make sure we aren’t losing to our own deck. For now, this means playing only 2 colors IMHO. Fetch+Shock damage, Blood Moon, natural colorscrew...all of these risk factors are heavily mitigated with a 2c landbase, which also just so happens to comfortably leverage 2-4 Fields of Ruin and ~6 basic lands, giving the deck a huge amount of intrinsic value when competing on that axis.
Restricting ourselves to just the two core colors also means that the specific spells in our 75 are a lot more flexible. Golgari can easily support 4 Nihil Spellbombs, 3 Scavenging Oozes, and 1x each of Kalitas, Grafdigger’s Cage, and Surgical Extraction, which is what my current build runs. If the meta is extremely grindy it can support 4x each of Bob and Tracker. If Burn is king it’s not unreasonable to register 4x Brutality and 2x Finks is your 75.
I could go on, but the salient point is that our lack of card selection can only really be mitigated by playing a high density of whatever cards are most needed to survive against Modern’s linear insanity, and a two-color shell provides the most stable and painless base upon which to build a 75 that’s capable of interacting while keeping pace with the meta.
YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
The newest development in Modern since GP ATL is Phoenix. I expect we see this card in Mardu, Mono R, Izzet, Jeskai, and other flavors as people try it out. The other big issue is whether or not Modern can pivot from the linear GP ATL T8 into something healthier at Portland. I have not been playing enough on MTGO to make an informed prediction about how strategies are positioned today.
If people skimp on removal it could see a lot of success.
Spirits
Exactly how I feel about the card. So long as you know what you're up against, two life can potentially eliminate every copy of a particular problem creature, win-con, silver bullet, etc. It's true that it will probably be lackluster against decks with built-in redundancy, but the versatility is fantastic and it's never really a dead card.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Before phoenix, of course, I think there was a good argument for the lack of good UR decks
And as much as I was arguing for Misstep, I can admit that it is laughably overpowered and will not come back. Oh how I wish it was costed at UU instead. That said, I would still love to see something like Force of Will / Misstep in modern that can counter turn 1 plays on the draw. I believe that would be an excellent addition to modern.
No GP coverage that I can find, but SCG is showing Modern portion right now. Spirits dumpstering Humans currently...
Spirits
Do you have an actual example of this? Arclight Phoenix has spawned its own archetype and aside from that, the only deck (not decks) I know of that tried it is Mardu. There are more Mardu decklists out there without Phoenix than there are with Phoenix.
Good luck shoehorning Punishing Fire into Hollow One. They need their fetchlands for Bloodghast and delve creatures, and the only land that isn't a fetch or a fetch target is Blackcleave Cliffs. So you can choose between making your Bloodghasts and delve creatures less consistent, or switching to RG and having a SB that can't beat combo.
Ponza cannot run Punishing Fire. It needs lots of Forests to enchant with Utopia Sprawl and untap with Arbor Elf. This is why you don't see Copperline Gorge in Kird Ape decks or Rootbound Crag in Valakut decks: because the basic land type matters, more than it being able to produce both green and red. On top of that, Ponza is a Blood Moon deck (as is Mardu, incidentally).
As for Jeskai...lol, you want to play 3-4 lands that tap for red and no other colors that you can use, in a deck that already has a ton of burn spells and Snapcaster Mage to cast them again?
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I mean, besides the fact that one is a mostly linear turn 3 aggro deck, and the other is a tempo/control deck with combo finish, they're totally the same thing!
Granted Phoenix is super fun, it's absolutely nothing like Twin. It's more like a cross between Dredge and Storm, without falling to specific hate, and can win about as quickly.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Game 1, 4 Phoenix Turn 2. I had to hold back and chump with 2, but I got there.
Game 2, fought him off, and a 9/4 Drake got it done.
Ponza I also 2-0 on the back of Gut Shot on Elf, Spell Pierce on Stone Rain, and Drakes to close the show.
Looking at the list it's like we talked about a few pages ago with Xerox decks. Feels like half the deck is air, but works.
Spirits
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
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Spirits
Plz don't be a busted deck...I can't lose another.
Spirits
We've seen an alarming number of decks in the Day 2 for most events since early 2017. We've even seen an alarming number of decks in T8s. And by the same token, we've seen no bans since early 2017, whether based on T8s and, especially, Day 2s. It's not worth worrying about and there's no recent evidence to suggest it's something to worry about.
It's a brand new powerful deck.
Everyone and their mothers played Shadow decks or things that beat Shadow. No need for alarm unless it's like this 6 months later.